


Black Coffee

by taormina



Category: Torchwood
Genre: Fluff, Ianto's Coffee, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-23
Updated: 2015-08-23
Packaged: 2018-04-16 20:32:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 871
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4639215
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/taormina/pseuds/taormina
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The coffee machine in the Hub has broken down.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Black Coffee

The worst imaginable thing had happened this morning. 

The coffee machine had broken down. _The_ coffee machine. 

Ianto had to think fast; his colleagues were going to be here any minute!

His eyes fell on the map of Cardiff that was carefully laid out on his desk in their phony visitor centre. _Of course_! He could just go to Costa’s and order a bunch of skimmed cappuccinos and caffè lattes — right in time, hopefully, for his colleagues’ arrival! He’d simply serve the coffee in his special Martian coffee cups in the pretence that nothing had happened. Simple. Then again, bloody Owen would probably notice . . . He _did_ always complain when Ianto had “accidentally” put one teaspoon of sugar into his coffee instead of the preferred two. _Shit_. 

A minute later Ianto was thinking about heading to St. David's and seeing if they might be selling a discount coffeemaker somewhere, but he only had about twenty quid on him that day, and payday wasn't till next Friday. Double shit. 

Ianto spent most of the morning mindlessly pacing through the Hub in the hopes of coming up with an idea. None came. 

Jack arrived from a Weevil-catching mission half an hour later, at some minutes past eight. He was covered in shit (quite literally) and smelled as though he had spent the entire night crawling through the sewers (he had), so predictably he said in a sort of offhand manner, ‘Ianto, be a good boy and make me a cappuccino while I take these clothes off.’ He proceeded to throw his dirty trench coat over the bannister, and Ianto groaned inwardly. He’d brought that thing to the dry cleaner’s last week! 

Thankfully Jack then disappeared into his office to grab a fresh pair of clothes, giving Ianto some time to think. They had no coffee. Lack of coffee generally made his colleagues very grumpy. Grumpy colleagues were generally a pain in the arse. 

But the alternative was admitting that he had broken the bloody coffeemaker because he desperately wanted to try a new blend of cinnamon beans and beans from the planet Hespic _THAT NO ONE IS ALLOWED TO TOUCH BY ANY MEANS BECAUSE THOSE THINGS ARE WORTH A FORTUNE. IANTO, I’M LOOKING AT YOU._  

Ianto had been so busy thinking that he started when Jack walked into the conference room and put his hand on the small of his back. For a moment, Ianto considered just forgetting about this morning’s tasks and tribulations and curling up into Jack’s embrace, but coffee machine. Broken. 

‘Hey, you okay? I didn't catch you thinking about me, did I?’ Jack chirped with a pat on Ianto’s arse. He sounded a bit too smug for this hour of the day. He smiled his trademark “Admit it, I'm sexy even though I just wrestled with a Weevil” smirk, and Ianto hesitated. Did he really want to lie over something as silly as this? 

Ianto stared at the ceiling as he tried to figure out how best to break the news. ‘I . . . may have . . . done something while you were away. _Sir_ ,’ he added as an afterthought. He knew he and Jack were long over the whole courtesy thing by now, but every now and then he still liked dropping the formal “Sir” into a sentence when they might be about to have An Argument. (Additionally it rather turned Jack on, which was useful when they were genuinely having a row.) 

Again, that smirk, followed by a sly once-over. ‘ _Oh_? You didn't have too much fun without me, I hope?’ 

(See?) 

‘I . . . broke the coffee machine, Jack, Sir,’ said Ianto solemnly. ‘It passed away this morning.’ 

Jack’s smile disappeared. He leaned on the large conference table for support. ‘You — _what_?’ 

‘I broke the coffee machine,’ Ianto reiterated, a tad more slowly so that Jack could catch up with this undoubtedly shocking news. ‘I expect any expenses for a replacement will be reflected in my salary. As per usual,’ he added, but not without rolling his eyes. ‘Like when the dishwasher died. And when Tosh blamed me from breaking her laptop. Which was mostly Owen’s fault, anyway,’ he added. 

‘You used the beans from Hespic?’ Jack said. It sounded more like an accusation than a question. 

‘Um, yeah. Sir.’ 

‘But I’ve just been up all night, chasing down Weevils!’ he whined. 

Jack needn’t say anything else. Ever since Ianto had been appointed as Torchwood’s resident coffee boy/administrator/pizza purchaser, Jack couldn’t start a new working day properly if he did not have a cup of coffee somewhere between eight and eight thirty. This notion was of course entirely psychological, but still. 

‘I know, it’s . . . awful,’ Ianto admitted, but not without a hint of sarcasm. When he looked at Jack properly, he noticed that he was wearing the blue dress shirt that he always wore when he wanted to get pulled. (Jack _always_ wore that shirt, but that was kind of the point.) Suddenly, an idea was forming in Ianto’s head that would involve disabling the bloody cameras again. Tosh got awfully angry about that last time. ‘If only there were other ways of starting one’s day in the morning, Sir.’ 

The frown on Jack’s face slowly transformed into a smile. ‘ _Oh_.’

**Author's Note:**

> A quick fic to stop myself from endlessly slaving away at another story that I have no idea how to finish.


End file.
